This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Debutantes spend big for Super Bowl ads

With a 30-second commercial costing up to $4.5 million (U.S.) this year, it’s a significant investment for companies seeking the eyes of the 110 plus viewers.

This image provided by Wix.com shows a portion of the company's television ad scheduled to be aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015, this one featuring retired football player Terrell Owens.
(AP Photo/Wix.com, Erik Isakson Photographics) (Erik Isakson Photographics / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

When it comes to Super Bowl betting, there are rarely stakes greater than the risks advertisers take in using that platform to showcase their brands.

With a 30-second commercial costing up to $4.5 million (U.S.) this year, it’s a significant investment for companies seeking the eyes of the 110 plus million viewers expected to tune in. Firms typically use the Super Bowl spots as touchstones of broad campaigns with strong digital, social media, and experiential components. Buzz is garnered even before the games with the early release of many of the ads online.

The well known heavyweights — Doritos, Bud Light, KIA, Coca-Cola — are back this year, but several little known businesses are also on board, gambling on the appearance to make them famous. The debutantes include toenail fungus treatment Jublia, Avocados From Mexico and super glue maker Loctite.

“So far, the adhesive category has only been advertised in expected places with boring functional messages,” Fred Chupin, Vice President of Marketing North America for German-based parent company Henkel said in a statement. “This game is where the most exciting and innovative brands come to tell their story on the biggest stage, and we felt that Loctite had something unique to say to America.”

The Super Bowl ad will be an “explosion of celebration” building on the company’s “Win at Glue” campaign, which features a Loctite Dance commercial which has already garnered more than 1.3 million views, said Henkel marketing director Pierre Tannoux of the spot which he told the Star cost more than the brand’s entire TV spend last year.

Article Continued Below

For their ad Israel-based website building platform Wix.com anted up for five NFL legends — Brett Favre, Terrell Owens, Emmitt Smith, Larry Allen and Franco Harris — to show them transitioning to entrepreneurship with the help of Wix.

“The timing fit now,” said Eric Mason, Director of Strategic Marketing Communications for the company which began in 2006, has 58,000 users and only began TV advertising last year.

“We’ve had a series of nationally run TV commercials; we cut our teeth on those, got some expertise in the area, then we just figured ‘Well, what’s the next logical step? We’ve really been trying to get our name out there to broader audience verses the grassroots way we’ve done in the past.

“The celebrity angle just gave us a way to engage people and tell the story that getting online and starting a business isn’t as hard as you think. We’re already seeing a huge return on the investment — brand recognition, increased click rates, being mentioned in articles discussing top website builders. The Emmett Smith video got over a million views in 24 hours.”

“People think ‘$4.5 million for 30 seconds, that’s crazy!’” said Mason. “Actually you get a whole quarter’s worth of branding and marketing out of it; and it spreads out over the course of the whole year. It’s not a big cost, it’s just an investment that you leverage.”

For smartphone accessory maker Mophie, the Super Bowl spot marks their first-ever TV commercial. The eye-catching spot features God inadvertently unleashing an end of days scenario on Earth because of a low battery.

“It’s the essential issue that everybody can relate to if you use a smartphone, or another mobile device; the frustration and disappointment of how things in your world can go astray and get weird when your phone dies,” said Kevin Malinowski, the California firm’s Marketing Manager, Media, of the commercial depicting “arguably the most powerful person in the world.”

The “substantial investment” undertaken by the company, which introduced the category of mobile power with the first battery case for the first iPhone, is a departure from the “modest marketing” which has made it an industry leader.

“We got to the point where we’re just in a position to really take it to the next level with our advertising particularly,” said Malinowski.

Even so Mophie, which also plans to give away $1 million worth of product on its website if the game goes into overtime, is not using the opportunity to tout a new or existing product.

“We kind of feel a responsibility to grow the category itself,” explained Malinowski. “We can’t grow any more really until we see the category grow.”

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com